Taking a break from the world today…

There are many different types of vacations. My personality tends to favor the Go Somewhere To Do And See As Much As You Can vacation. On these trips I factor in some time to actually enjoy things, but there’s still a plan in place to make sure we get to the right places at the right time and see everything we wanted to. Even that enjoyment time is in the schedule.

The type of vacation I need more often, and finally got last week, was the Disconnect And Reboot Your Brain vacation.

A disconnection vacation is more about taking a break and realigning yourself than seeing the sights. It’s tougher to do in our world of constant connectivity and working vacations, but I think that makes it even more essential.

It’s when an athlete rests that his body heals and grows stronger. It’s when an instrument takes a pause that you hear notes instead of a screech.

Disconnecting gadgets and habits

This past week I was able to get away almost entirely up to some cabins in Oak Creek Canyon outside of Sedona. We took our Prius v from the Prius Challenge to see how it would handle the rain, hills, and curves in the canyon. It held up like a champ.

I had one previously-scheduled class I had to give via wifi at a coffee shop, but other than that I stayed out of email, and off of Facebook and all those other ridiculous networks. This was easier since we were so deep in the canyon we couldn’t get cell signal even if we wanted to.

I hiked, sat on our patio, read (Cloud Atlas – loving it!), practiced sketching, drank some tasty beer, learned some new software programs for ebooks, ate some great food, wrote for my own neglected book, watched the stars, and smoked a few cigars. (some pics, if you’re interested)

Most importantly, I put some distance between myself and my daily habits, not all of which were good ones. Some of those habits I’ll pick up again, others hopefully not, but I gained a little bit more perspective for the distance.